Cloud computing

Cloud computing

Abstract

Cloud computing is a computing paradigm whereby there is a large pool of systems connected to private or public networks, to offer dynamic and scalable data storage and application infrastructure. Cloud computing technology offers resource sharing in a pure plug and plays model that significantly simplifies infrastructure (Sunita & Prachi, 2013). It has advantages in light of the ease of use and cost effectiveness. The benefits the model offers far much supersede the issues of concern by other people such as security and vendor lock-in. The paper’s aim is to provide a means of understanding Cloud computing, the providers, significant differences among providers and a recommendation on the most appropriate provider. The recommendations are line with Comptech Inc.

Introduction

Cloud computing is the offering of computing services over the Internet. The cloud services allow individuals and enterprises to utilize software and hardware managed by third parties at remote locations (Rackspace.com, 2011). Some examples of the offered cloud services include social networking sites, online businesses applications, online file storage, and webmail. The model offers access to computing resources and information from any place in the globe that a network connection is available. It provides a pool of resources for sharing including networks, specialized corporate and user applications, and data storage space. Some of the characteristics of cloud computing include resource pooling, on-demand self-service, rapid elasticity, broad network access and measured service. Below is an evaluation of four companies that offer the cloud computing services.

Microsoft Cloud computing services

Microsoft offers the infrastructure for a Service, which allows you to get on-demand computing and storage to scale, host as well as manage applications and services (Microsoft.com, n.d). Through this IsaaS service, it is possible for any users to scale with ease and meet any infrastructure needs. Microsoft also offers the Platform as a Service (PaaS) capability through the Window Azure platform. That is a fully relational database and a web-based service that offers security-enhanced connectivity, as well as federated access control for applications. Another cloud computing service by Microsoft is Software as a Service (SaaS). These services are subscription based hosted and on-demand services to end users. Examples are Business Productivity Online Suite, the Exchange Hosted Services, Office Web Apps and Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online.

IBM cloud computing services

IBM offers IaaS services such as Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud, IBM SmartCloud Enterprise; IBM SmartCloud managed backup and Enterprise+ (Coyne et al., 2014). The RC2 allows researchers to get cloud computing infrastructure and application including infrastructure resources for their projects. All the other IaaS services provide storage, processing and network in an elastic fashion. They allow you as a user to run your chosen software, operating systems, and other application as they take control of the underlying cloud infrastructure. IBM also offers PaaS services through the following PaaS models such as Amazon Relational Database Service, IBM SmartCloud Application Services, and Microsoft Window Azure. The services provisioned by the models are development runtime environment, middleware, portal servers, database servers and application servers. They offer a platform for the users to provision their applications and carry out platform development activities. The users have no need for managing the underlying cloud infrastructure such as network, OS, and storage. They, however, have control over the configuration of those services.

IBM also offers SaaS services through cloud models like PeopleSoft HR, IBM Payment Systems, and Google Apps for Businesses and IBM SmartCloud for Social Businesses. The cloud user can connect to the application running at a remote location. The management of the cloud infrastructure, the application, and the platform on which the application is running is the responsibility of the cloud service provider. IBM also offers BPaaS (Business process as a service) services. The examples of BPaaS commercial implementations are IBM Blueworks Live, Google Adsense and IBM Care Solution for the healthcare market. The BPaaS integrates software and workflow elements to deliver end-to-end business processes.

Akamai Cloud computing services

The EdgeComputing of Akamai enables organizations to deploy and execute JEE apps or their related components onto the Akamai network (Akamai.com, 2009). The service is useful by the Sony Company. Another cloud service is the Akamai NetStorage that integrates geographically distributed replication of content with the intelligent global management of traffic and failover. The service is fully controlled and has a basis on pay-per-user that offers superior performance, scalability, and reliability, subsequently eliminating in-house infrastructure.

Google’s cloud computing services

Google combines many applications and provides a number of services to cloud users. That makes the company one of the best CSPs because of the way it makes it easy for users to accomplish their tasks (Youssef, 2012) easily. Among the services provided by Google are Google Docs, Gmail, Picasa, Google Analytics, and Google Ad Words and Ad Sense. Gmail services offer users 25GB storage with less spam and mobile access. It also includes chat applet that offers storage of conversations in the form of email. Google Docs service enables users to create documents and store them on the cloud servers. The services are accessible from anywhere at any time. The Google analytics service allows monitoring of traffic that is coming to a website. Picasa service is useful in exhibiting product uploading of images in the cloud. The Ad and Ad Sense are advertising services.

Recommending providers

I recommend the Google and Microsoft cloud computing services. I am especially interested in the SaaS services as it allows the CSPs to have full control over running, maintenance of the OS and software applications of the virtual resources. The customer sees the SaaS model as web-based application interface where they can access the services through a web browser. The host applications such as Google Docs, Gmail, Office Web Apps and Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online are accessible to users through various devices. The devices include laptops, cell phones, and iPads. SaaS has an advantage in that customers do not have to buy licenses, upgrade, install, run or maintain the software on their computers. The SaaS services also provide the advantage of multi-tenant efficiency, scalability, and reconfigurability.

I recommend the two providers for SaaS services as they are popular in the computing market and their services have wide application, meaning that they are very cheap. The two companies have dominated the software and hardware market over time, and their services and products are usable across the globe. That is why I recommend them to provide the computing services for Comptech Inc. They will help the company to save costs as their cloud services are cheaper and convenient besides being applicable across many platforms and accessible through various devices. Comptech has the confidence of reliability of the cloud services from the two companies as the companies have a good establishment, and they continue to improvise those services from time to time.

Of the two providers, Google is preferable compared to Microsoft because of its well establishment and the cost of services. For instance, it offers 25GB of storage for free on Gmail and the Google Docs service is almost free. It is in wide usage and a trusted company that has most of its services useful for all applications and most devices. Google has a well establishment as it has been operational for many years. That fact gives Comptech Inc the confidence that the company’s services are reliable and sustainable. Many of the services that we use nowadays like Gmail, Google Docs, Picasa and Ad Sense are from Google. Thus, Google cloud computing services will help Comptech to save more money in utilizing its cloud services.

Conclusion

Cloud computing offers a number of benefits in upfront capital expenditure on software and hardware deployment (Luitinfortech.com, n.d). Cloud computing services also offer increased security of data at reduced costs compared to standalone applications due to increased security-focused resources and data centralization. With the many providers f cloud computing services, there is a need to select the companies that are likely to give a company more benefits than other providers. The providers that of course fall in that category are those that have good establishment with the provision of reliable services with regular updates.

References

Akamai.com (2009). Akamai solutions for cloud computing.

Coyne, L. et al. (2014). "IBM private, public, and hybrid cloud storage solutions." IBM Redbooks (2nd Ed.).

Luitinfotech.com (n.d). What is cloud computing?

Microsoft.com (n.d). Cloud services.

Rackspace.com (2011). Understanding the cloud computing stack: SaaS, PaaS, IaaS.

Sunita, M. & Prachi, L. (2013). Introduction to cloud computing. International journal of advanced research in computer science and software engineering, 3(5).

Youssef, A. (2012). Exploring cloud computing services and applications. Journal of emerging trends in computing and information sciences, 3(6).

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